Advantages of a Family Health Insurance Plan

Regardless of how much you earn, your funds might become insufficient when a medical emergency occurs. Health insurance helps one tide over such times without worrying about the financial aspects associated with diagnosis and treatment. But what if you are the only earner in the family? How would you handle finances if your parent or spouse contracts a chronic disease? The answer is a health insurance plan for the family.

Benefits of Health Insurance Plan for Family

The significant advantages of investing in health insurance for your family are listed below.

1. Cost-effective

Suppose you have a family of five: you, your parents, your spouse, and your child. If you purchase healthcare plans for all separately, the premium will be much higher. However, the premium for a family floater plan is much lower than two or three separate plans.

In addition, the insurer allows you to extend coverage to up to eight family members and add your parents-in-law to the plan.

2. High Coverage

Look at this example to understand this concept better. Assume you have a family floater plan with a sum insured of Rs 10 lakh. The plan provides coverage for your parents, you, and your spouse. One day, your spouse becomes unwell, and the medical bill comes to Rs 9 lakh. In this instance, you can use the policy to cover the entire cost. That is because the sum insured under the health insurance plan is not distributed equally among the covered individuals.

However, this feature has drawbacks too. If two covered members become ill in two consecutive months and the first member has exhausted the whole sum insured, the policy cannot assist.

In order to deal with such a predicament, your best option is to invest in top-up plans. This plan will restore the exhausted sum insured, allowing you to be stress-free during the medical crisis.

3. Maternity Cover

If you have recently married, investing in a family floater plan becomes more important. The reason is many plans include coverage for maternity-related expenses. If the insurer does not offer this coverage as a part of the standard insurance, you can opt for a maternity rider to boost the coverage.

Before picking the ideal insurer, checking on this factor becomes crucial.

4. Coverage to new members

You can always add a baby to your ongoing family floater plan without hassle. You can do this at any point throughout the insurance term or when the policy is renewed.

All you have to do is ask your insurer for it in writing. The insurer will then provide you with a new quote. After you pay the premium, your infant will be insured immediately.

However, there are a few points worth noting here. Newborns can only be added after they are 91 days old. Once your child turns 18, you must purchase a separate cover for him/her.

5. Tax Benefits

Family floaters, like all other healthcare plans, provide tax benefits. Section 80D of the Income Tax Act states that if you buy a family floater plan while under the age of 60, you can decrease your taxable income by Rs 25,000. If you are a senior citizen, the ceiling surges to Rs 50,000.

6. Better Management

When you purchase individual policies for all of your dependent family members, you must keep track of the premium due dates and renewals. These can be extremely stressful, especially if you have a hectic job.

If you miss the renewal date and the individual who needs to be insured becomes ill, the medical costs may strain your budget.

However, this is not the case for family insurance, which is much easier to manage as there is a single premium. You just have to keep track of a single renewal date and maintain one policy document.

7. Cashless Claims

Don't have the cash to deal with a medical emergency? So, you don't even need it. A family floater plan offers a cashless claim facility. That means if you become unwell and require hospitalisation, you can be admitted to a hospital where your insurer has a tie-up and get treated for free, except for deductibles.

Your insurer's third-party administrator will assist you or your covered family member with all claim-related formalities.

8. Free Health Check-ups

Depending on your policy, you and your family members may be eligible for a number of free yearly health exams. These screenings can help discover underlying symptoms or clinical conditions. Once you are aware of these indications, you can take prompt action to help prevent them from worsening.

Conclusion

Stressing over your loved one's health is understandable, but with family health insurance, you may eliminate these concerns. This category of insurance provides full coverage while also providing tax benefits. If you do not have enough savings, the cashless treatment option can help you or your family recover from any illness without losing sleep over the mounting medical bills and other associated expenses.

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